


With Promises

by typhe



Series: Snowblind [2]
Category: Valdemar Series - Mercedes Lackey
Genre: AU, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, LHM, M/M, Mutual Masturbation, Reunions, bereavement
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-14
Updated: 2012-09-14
Packaged: 2017-11-14 04:50:26
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/511498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/typhe/pseuds/typhe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A reunion after a long journey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With Promises

**Author's Note:**

> This is not a standalone fic, it's the epilogue to an AU that it is way too fluffy to fit into. Back button is on your upper left.

The last time Vanyel had ridden into Haven on a horse, he'd been fifteen, exiled from his home, and had little to be happy about except for how good he looked on horseback. He'd forgotten how lonely a long journey could be. She was a good horse, one of several his father sent north as soon as the situation had become apparent; other landholders had contributed too, maybe shamed by Lord Withen's generosity or keen to impress the young Heir who was almost a king now, and he'd received some useful gifts as he'd struggled to put the far north back to rights and hold the land through midwinter in uncertain shelter. But she wasn't real company, and he worried that he'd turned a little strange on the road with only himself to talk to; from longing and from habit there were too many thoughts in his head that he wanted to address to Yfandes, and it made him miss her more sorely than he had in many months.

Ostensibly, it was duty that had kept him in the north until after the wildflowers had bloomed in the high meadows of the Ice Wall; to resettle the hundreds upon hundreds of enthralled soldiers and workers, to find the last hidden outposts of Leareth's followers and decide what to do about them, to formalise relations and land agreements with the _kyree_ , to do his sorry best to dissipate the blood-power from Leareth's altar - a magically and emotionally exhausting task that he'd eventually admitted he _couldn't_ complete himself; it would require the power of a Healer-Adept, one who'd be willing to make the hard journey there, and he knew in his bones that it would therefore have to be Brightstar K'Treva. Most days, he had been far too busy to keep appointments with Mindhealers, who had far too many other former captives to help anyway, most of whom had suffered much worse than he had; but they grew cunning about cornering him whenever he felt he was about to fall apart. They'd only recently decided they'd done all they could for him, and after that he'd rapidly tied up all the loose ends he could, the last of which was escorting Crow home to her family atop another of his father's horses with a letter from the King in her pocket and not a sign that she'd ever been pregnant. He'd commended her bravery to Randale and requested that the Crown find a good plot of land to award to her family, and he'd written to Meke for advice on purchasing sheep. With that settled, he'd had nowhere left to go but back to Haven; back to the life he'd cast aside to take on Leareth so many months ago.

He'd _tried_ tendering his resignation from the Circle and Council by courier, but Randale had returned that particular letter in pieces with an accompanying note asking Van to allow him a little melodrama. Part of him was still considering trying again after Randale died, but he knew that Treven would, at least, _think_ that Vanyel was needed more than ever. He didn't know where he fit in any more; a Herald, for sure - still a part of the Web, but without the support and guidance of a Companion. It wasn't completely unheard of but the only cases he'd known of were of very old pairings, long retired; it gave him a strange sense of not fitting into the world any more, and on the road he had often felt uncomfortable wearing Whites. News, in a garbled form, had travelled; he'd got confused looks and pitying ones and sometimes people quietly making the signs that warded off bad fortune. It reminded him oddly much of the first few times he'd sought a romantic partner after Tylendel had died, back when their relationship had been a notorious scandal, not a buried secret. He'd received one truly unexpected form of support; as he'd met other Heralds both in the north and on the road, their Companions had freely spoken to him. He knew it was possible but very rare, and receiving their fellowship, being included by them still in an extraordinary way, had meant a lot to him even without a personal bond to back it up.

He received more peculiar looks at the Palace gates, and worried over it as he walked his horse back to the corner of the stables that Lord Withen leased; he felt so far from what used to pass for 'normal', and if that made strangers hard to deal with, his friends and his family could in some ways be even more unsettling. And then there was Stefen, who was something more than either of those things...

His hand slipped into the pocket where he'd stowed the thick parchment wad of Stefen's letters; since he'd been recalled to the Palace, Stef had written about twice a week, and Van had found himself impatient for the sight of the Herald-Couriers; the last great snowfall had delayed the post for over a week and receiving three letters at once had barely placated him. He often hadn't had _time_ to respond but Stef had urged him not to trouble himself over that; the Bard's words, cordial or intimate, funny or weary, peppered with infuriating rhymes and curious questions, always hopeful whatever new disaster he was commenting on, all in his rapid and spidery and strangely beautiful script, had been a source of warmth to Vanyel on the coldest days of winter. On the worst of those - when his thoughts had tiptoed inexorably back to the belltower, to the stone and cracking ebony that the blood-power had run out of, to the stairs that could now barely even take the weight of those thoughts - he had _forced_ himself to wait for but one more letter.

In retrospect, the things Stef did with words could be damned calculating.

 

After brushing off the first three people who tried to engage him, he started walking faster. Acting like he was meant to be somewhere was a good way to stop anyone from bothering him, but he was struck again by the feeling of _not_ being meant to be here. They'd all got along fine without him, in spite of Randale's litany of complaints about needing him for one reason or another. Yes, he was the last mage alive who served Valdemar, but he'd done his best to ensure that they wouldn't need any mages at _all_. He knew he could make himself useful, but as he crossed Companion's Field the sense of displacement nagged at him.

He felt his heart wandering, even as his feet were planted still in the spring's new grass; to the river, where she'd found him and kept him beside her on the blackest night of his life; to every place they'd liked to meet and to walk together; to the empty hollow they visited when he needed to think. For so long now it had been those moments with her here in the cultivated wilds of the Field that had truly made Haven his home, not the panelled walls of any of the various Palace rooms he'd occupied, not the press of human faces around him. _She always showed me where I belonged_ , he realised. _Before her, I hadn't the least idea. It's something I'm not used to figuring out alone - and I never thought I'd have to get by without her there to guide me._ He _felt_ hollow; there was a grey, echoing emptiness where the middle of his life used to be.

What would he have done back then, if she hadn't Chosen him? That was easily answered, but he owed too much to too many people to do any such thing. And besides. He had more than letters to keep him here now.

_Maybe I just need to see everyone and get it over with. I don't want to avoid people forever, and it's the people I care for who'll show me where I belong._

The thought had no sooner left his mind than he felt a familiar mental touch as if over his shoulder, and Jisa gave an audible shout and all but barrelled into him. So much for his bout of loneliness - some people would never let him feel unloved.

 

He felt caught in his distance and memories even in her closeness and cheer. He couldn't say what she was doing here in Companion's Field, and neither could she. She'd yet to be Chosen; that was a balm he took guiltily, because unlike anyone else he might have touched mind-to-mind in affection, there wasn't that sense in her of everything that he had lost.

But even as he held her, he was thinking of that night a year before Jisa was even born, when he'd taken a foal-watch because Lissandra had caught an awful flu just as Shonsea was due; it was her first, and both Van's experience with horse-farming and Yfandes's wisdom as a mother of two had been dearly needed, and as he stood by the two Companions in the small of the night Yfandes had made some sly comment at him about gestational time, and he'd looked at the waxing moon and realised abruptly that he was already a father. He hadn't known the twins' names then, or if they were boys or girls - Snowlight had wanted a girl - and even now he wasn't sure of their birthday according to the Valdemaran reckoning; but he would always remember that realisation of being something, however little meaning he attached to it, that he'd stopped expecting he ever would be. It was a connection he'd felt with the world.

He held Jisa's arm gently, basking in her affection too much to be willing to relinquish it. Their reunion had been almost wordless, almost nameless, and he could feel all the pain and the fear in her, the shadowed gladness that she at least wouldn't have to bury all three of her parents, the way she _needed_ him now in that way that they'd always both been glad for her to _not_ need him. The pain was too close for her to call him _father_ , and she wouldn't call him _uncle_ and that left the affectionate brush of one mind to another that said simply _you_.

"Come on," she said aloud, almost dragging him towards the Palace. "You have visits to make. Stef has been _pining_." He laughed softly, almost hoping it was true.

She led him back to the room she and Treven shared - she had stubbornly stuck to a single plain ground-floor room, as they did little but sleep there, and as it wasn't nearly nice enough to boast a garden door she insisted they climb in through the window. "You're ridiculous," he told her, sat on the sill scraping his boots off before setting them on the floor. Which was a mess. He didn't dare ask why she hadn't let the maids disturb them that morning.

"Oh, shush. I can tell you don't want to be harangued by a crowd. I didn't want to subject you to the long route - it's full of people this time of day."

Perceptive, but she always had been when it came to him. "I would prefer to go call on people one at a time, yes." She wrinkled her nose, not being the greatest of courtly socialites herself. "I have the Council to reacquaint myself with yet. And my parents. I'm not sure which debriefing I'm dreading more."

She smiled lightly, but he knew she could tell that there was real trepidation behind his careless words. He'd sent countless reports south, but he didn't relish taking formal questions about what Leareth had done or how he had finally been brought down. Mindhealing had helped him face what he'd been through, but he wasn't sure he'd trust anyone with a full account of it except perhaps Stefen, who knew the worst already. "Try convening the Council before breakfast," she suggested. "That way they won't keep you long."

"Not a bad idea." He sighed. "Though there is a lot they might _need_ to hear from me. I know that to them I was just another regional administrator convinced that my fiefdom's problems were the most desperate in all of Valdemar - I'm worried that they don't know _how_ much more still needs to be done. There's still people stuck there because Leareth killed their whole families or razed their villages to bare rock, and now the old temple's collapsed to the point of being uninhabitable there'll be nowhere for them to shelter through the worst of next winter. I don't think I'd even trust the outer walls without me there to spell over the cracks. We ran out of coal after a month - once we'd rescued the thralls from Leareth's mines, there weren't enough supplies coming through the Ice Wall. I heated the whole camp by magic every night for the rest of the winter. There were still five hundred people there when I left, and believe me, anyone who knew where to go left the moment they first knew they were free." _Except Crow. She was a better friend than I ever dreamed I could find up there, and she'll make a fine landholder. I know, like me, she needed some time to heal before going back to the bosom of her family, but she had no reason to work half as hard as she did._ "There must still be threats out there that I don't even know about - we can't be the only people trying to make hay from the power vacuum. But we can hardly watch the whole northern Border, not with so much trouble down south. And there's still blood-power eating into the earth and waiting to cause future problems - Hyrryl's been trying to send word over the Pelagirs to the Tayledras, but she doesn't use normal human Mindspeech protocols and I'm worried that I'll have to go there to ask for their aid myself."

"Papa won't like you going away again."

"He might not have a choice." The thought rose, unbidden, that he may not have to wait very long before Randale's objections became finally moot, and he despaired as much for what he'd come back to as what he'd just left. If he could steal even a few days away from some crisis or other -

His eyes turned to the door of their own volition, and he heard the young men's voices a moment before it opened. Treven stepped through first, and he gasped in surprise; Van allowed the young heir to come clasp his hands in greeting, but barely even heard his salutation, all his attention locked on the hesitant figure a few steps behind.

He heard Jisa sigh, and Treven stepped to her side discreetly; Vanyel's heart quickened as he offered Stefen his hands in formal welcome. "Hello, stranger," Stef murmured as he took them, and smiled sweetly.

Vanyel couldn't help but smile back. "You look well," he said awkwardly. Stefen looked beautiful. His face had lost the hollowness and wear it had acquired during his journey to the north, but his hazel eyes kept much of the strangeness and wisdom; his hands held Vanyel's firmly, and those hands and eyes offered all of the warmth and grace and steadiness that Van had sorely missed having close to him.

"You look a damn sight better than the last time I saw you," Stefen declared, and Van laughed a little, knowing that after a week and a half on the road, smelling of horse-sweat and with pollen-dust still clinging to his hair, there wasn't much more to be said for him than that. Their hands parted, and Stefen glanced at Jisa a little awkwardly. "Forgive me, milady. I didn't know you'd have company this afternoon."

"Neither did I," she replied, smiling merrily, and then turned serious, perhaps at an unspoken word from Treven. "Any word from past the line yet?"

"No." Stef looked aside, frowning, and Vanyel immediately decoded the allusion and realised he wasn't surprised that Stefen had got involved in maintaining the covert networks he'd established. That definitely hadn't been something he'd felt able to delegate by courier and he had hoped Joshel would find _someone_ to help him cover the gap, and he couldn't think of anyone better than Stefen. Jisa gave a frown in return, and something in the way the three youngsters seemed to fit together reminded him abruptly of the way Randi, Shavri and himself had come together when Randale had been made Heir; a friendship first graven in personal secrets, quickly shifting at need into an alliance of political power. _They're not children any more. They're near-as-dammit running the place, and they're going to be good at it._ "Joshe will be _very_ glad to see you," Stefen added to Van. "We're jumping at shadows at this point."

"I can't say I blame you," he sighed. Coordinating spies was stressful; when you weren't fearing for their lives you were fearing you couldn't trust them, and there might be any number of communication slips between here and Karse. "Do you have time to get me up to speed on your situation so I can help?"

"I wish," he sighed. "I have an afternoon engagement that I'm not even dressed for and I was already regretting that I accepted it because -" He glanced at Jisa, then back at Vanyel. "Randi's having an awful week. He says he can spare me today, but..." Van recognised his guilt; needing to be in several places at once was all too common a feeling, and it was easy to want to put your own needs last of all. "You should call on him first," Stef suggested. "He's been afraid of - not seeing you again..."

Jisa was chewing her lip; Stefen's words were blunt but they all knew what they were facing, and Vanyel laid a hand on her shoulder, not able to reassure but wanting her to know that he had strength to spare for her. _I'll be there when she needs me -_ and he realised how close he'd come to not being able to say that; put like that, perhaps everything that happened had been worth the pain. "Would you come with me?" he asked her. "Before I go catch up with Joshel?"

"Yes - I might have to wake him up, but he made me promise I would, when you came back."

Stefen was looking grave. "Please send him my apologies -" Jisa hushed him with a look; Stef was prone to feeling too responsible for Randale's health. Vanyel could hardly fault him for that but given how helpless they _all_ were in the face of his continuing deterioration, Stef would do well to accept it sooner rather than later. "I need to go get ready now. Van, if you have a little time to spare for me later...?"

"I don't have any dinner plans yet," he replied, feeling his heart twitch, hopeful and wary.

"Right. I should be back in my rooms by sundown. I have new rooms now, did I tell you? On the east corner of the floor above Randale's." Sensible - Van thought about the layout, and figured it for under a minute of frantic running should Randi need him after hours. If he remembered correctly the corner rooms were all fetching two-room suites, often draughtier than most but with good views to make up for it. "I'll see you later, then," said Stef, and left, looking back over his shoulder as he closed the door, eyes alight with gladness. He kept looking at the door for a few seconds after Stef left, and had an odd sense - perhaps just his imagination - that Stefen's presence lingered too, hovering by the door on the other side. _Gods, I've missed him so much. And it seems he's missed me, too..._

It was a relief to know that Stef still wanted his company, and Vanyel tried not to look too much beyond that. The mindhealing processes were still active in his head, tools to break the chains of paranoia and confusion that had coiled about him during his days in captivity. The healing kept him oriented toward the rational. He and Stefen had a lot to talk about, and he had no cause to feel fear or doubt of him before that process had even begun, had he?

Jisa's hand around his arm brought him back to the present; he clasped her in return, enjoying the chance to just touch someone without worrying over it. She led him towards Randale's rooms, Treven following behind them, and she augmented the touch of their hands with one of their minds as they walked. _:Father...:_

She pulled back from his shields smoothly, with a Mindhealer's regard for privacy; he only hoped her ethics would continue to overcome her adolescent curiosity, because there were a lot of things he hoped she'd never know. _:I'm alright, sweetling. I love you.:_

 

Vanyel rapped on the oak door, and it opened before he could lift his hand away. "Havens, I was terrified that Randi would have found something for you to _do_. Welcome to my humble abode, and such."

"Nothing about you has ever been humble," he replied, but he looked around curiously. The outer room was well-lit, and just small enough to look slightly crowded; it had a fireplace with a couch and a low table nearby, a long sideboard under a huge window, and a writing-desk in the corner that evidenced that Stef must be at the most sprawling point of his creative process; it was overrun with sheaves of manuscript paper, pencilled notes, books folded open at relevant pages, discarded drafts in screwed-up balls (and gods _forbid_ anyone throw any of them away before he was done, because he might yet _need_ them...) Van couldn't help but smile. During their previous cohabitation they'd argued about such things, and in despair of ever regaining access to his desk he'd acquired a small folding side-table, and then come home to find it occupied by a tower of books from the Palace library, snaked through with a clutch of spare spare lute-strings that Stef had used to mark several pages at once. Remembering their bickering made him feel indecently fond. _If we could somehow get back to that life, I swear I won't complain about the little things again. I miss seeing him make music. I miss coming home to this._

The memory felt so innocent; the Stef who was beckoning him into a seat and ringing a bell for dinner seemed much older and solemner than he had been before winter, and even his genuine smiles felt more meditative, less spontaneous, than Van was used to him being - and Vanyel was all too aware of his own hesitance. He wasn't sure what to expect, or even want, from Stefen's company this evening. It was easy to wish to turn back the wheel of the year and forget everything that had gone wrong, but rebuilding the joy they'd shared, even if they both missed it, would be much harder.

"So what do you think of this place?" asked Stefen casually. Vanyel smiled tentatively - too aware of the possibility that Stefen might shortly invite him to spend the night here, and he went over to the window to admire the view as well as the dusk allowed, a cover for his uncertainty. Their elbows brushed as they looked out over the Palace grounds together, Stefen pointing out the best of the spring's new arrays of flowers down in the formal gardens below. "I've enjoyed watching them all come out from up here," he said. "It's marked the time passing." Van caught his eyes and he felt the implication; _waiting for me to return to you?_

"I never knew you were interested in horticulture," he replied.

"Neither did I. I had to occupy my mind with something, though."

 _You were worrying yourself over me._ There was a knock at the door before Vanyel could reply, and Stefen stepped away to admit the pages with their dinner; there were a couple of bottles of wine, and Vanyel eagerly poured himself a cupful to steady his hands and his nerves. _Go easy_ , he reminded himself. _I've not touched the stuff in months._

It _did_ calm him, and warm him; as did Stef's conversation. If Vanyel had hoped for a serious heart-to-heart regarding his mental state or their relationship, he would have been very disappointed; but somehow that was the last thing on his mind. Stef regaled him with only the most entertaining court gossip, played him a half-dozen new ballads that had not yet made their way to the far north, and sought his knowledge on many stored-up questions that had arisen in his mind during Council sessions he'd had to be present at with Randale. Vanyel realised how much he'd missed just _talking_ with the inquisitive and insightful young man. He found so much joy in being Stefen's best friend, his mentor, his confidant, his sounding-board and captive audience and painfully amateur collaborator. He liked having Stef pick his brain about politics and music and everything else under the sun, and he could admit he felt flattered that Stef still valued his opinions so highly, especially now Stef seemed so much...

 _He's hardened_ , he thought, _like hot iron tempered in icewater_ \- and again he felt that fluttering fear of being left behind - what if Stef changing meant Stef growing away from him? What if Stef had stopped needing him in his life, as a friend or anything else?

He tried to seek out the rational, and found that he couldn't feel unwanted - not when Stefen was bringing up tiny details from letters Vanyel had sent to him, drawing words out of him with deliberate care and then hanging off each and every one of them. He thought at first that, between the drink and his own uncertainty, he might simply be imagining that Stef's flattery was intentional. _But it must be intentional - he's a bard._ Everything _he does with words is intentional. His_ purpose _is to make people feel the way I do right now._ Stef smiled at him for the thousandth time, and Van felt the comfort in it wrap around his confused heart. _This is what he does. He_ soothes pain. _Sometimes, I think he's the hearthealer Andrel always said didn't exist. And he's using all that power on_ me _, making me feel like I'm special to him in a dozen ways that_ don't _involve sex, and then maybe just hinting at more..._

He allowed himself to drink a little more than he'd first intended, and Stef started playing for him again - treating him to the unfinished piece that had overtaken the unfortunate desk, still written in pencil with minuscule (and most likely profane) annotations scattered around between staves. It was a melodic song about springtime and stirrings of courtship, suggestive rather than intimate, and Van allowed himself to bask in the sound and in Stef's projected emotions. He knew he was probably the first person Stef had allowed to hear this, and that was more than just flattering.

 _I did enjoy that perk of being lifebonded to a bard..._ Thinking of the bond, and everything that had come along with it, made it seem much more present; Stefen's deftly extended feelings gained more depth, the words he sang held more meaning, and Vanyel thought of where they'd been a year ago, newly friends and not yet lovers, a hesitant courtship, their closeness growing while their bond still lay unacknowledged. _This could be us. Gods, it was us. It_ is _us._ He watched Stefen sing, seeing him looking back through half-closed eyes, and felt like he was falling in love with him all over again.

"Well?" asked Stefen lightly, in the silence after his final note. Vanyel couldn't reply. His mouth had dropped open, and he tried to gather his drunken wits to give Stef some tiny fragment of the praise he deserved, but to his horror he felt himself _yawning_ , overcome by weary confusion. "That bad, was it?" he joked, entirely casual, neither expecting nor demanding anything; he always hid vulnerability about his work well.

Van shook his head, trying to regain his composure. "Gods, no, it was perfect. Very - ah - appropriate." A second of dead silence passed between them. "I mean. It sounds right. For - the season," floundered Vanyel.

"You," cautioned Stefen, "seem somewhat insensible."

 _Oh, you'd never say that to a paying patron. I guess you really are spoiling me out of love._ And there it was. He couldn't doubt it any more. He was being thoroughly romanced by the handsomest bard in Haven and he was, he was sure, blushing to his toes.

"You're certainly tired," continued Stef, and he set his gittern down, suddenly seeming thoughtful. "Think you can still make it back downstairs?" _No. No, I don't._ He felt his confusion rising - this was fate, or was it one of Stef's machinations, or was it his own unconscious choice? He trembled, not sure how to admit his incapacity, how to ask or what to ask for. "Well..." Stef grinned a little shyly. "I thought it might be useful having two rooms, sometimes. I could sleep in here tonight. You are most welcome to take my bed - it's only fair. I can even ensure that no one barges in to wake you up before noon." He stood, and Van felt simultaneously calmed and confounded.

He followed Stef to the bedroom door on shaking legs, and looked into the room beyond; larger than the study, and he could perceive only its outlines in the moonlight and the glow of the candles in the next room; a spacious bed, and the shapes of more musical clutter, tucked well enough out of the way that he'd not be at risk of falling over a hand-harp in the gloom. Stef gave him a steadying grip to the back of his elbow, and thrust a night-candle into his hand, curling Vanyel's fingers against it gently. The touches made his skin hot, for all their innocence. "Goodnight," Stefen murmured, nudging him forward, and there was a lingering hesitation before he added, " _ashke_ ," and stepped back to close the door between them.

Vanyel sighed, and saw the candle fluttering in his shaky grip. He set it down on the mantelpiece, feeling tickles of warm air coming from the other side of the flue; and he sank down to sit with his back against the door, tipping his head against it in bewilderment. _What a fine joke. Oh gods, I want him. I love him. I don't know what I dare to want._ He rested his head against his knees, feeling at a complete loss with his own feelings.

He froze. A whisper of breath, like a sob. Somewhere very close to the level of his own ears. _Stef?_

He rolled smoothly onto his knees, reached up to the doorhandle and turned it silently, sure now of the weight of a body slouched against the other side of the door. He shuffled clear of the door, and then swung it open in one fast movement.

Stef's curled body fell back onto the floor at Van's feet. "Wh - what?" He looked stunned, and stared at Vanyel incredulously. Van took a bare second to understand - Stefen, sunk against the same door he'd firmly closed in Vanyel's face, Stef with curled hands and tears on his cheeks? - before leaning down to kiss his bondmate passionately.

Stefen gasped, and parted his lips under Vanyel's, his arms reaching up and wrapping firm around him, pulling him close, allowing Van's tongue to find his in welcome. Vanyel pressed against the length of his body, hands running down Stef's sides as they kissed, bold from drink and his power to choose this, finding Stef's belt, scrabbling for skin, still tangling mouth against mouth in a wild and forceful dance, feeling himself hardening, feeling Stef _\- oh stars, are we really -?_ He heard himself moaning against Stef's lips and shifting his body, trapping Stef's thigh between his, shifting and _oh gods touching -_

\- Stefen sat up sharply, and pulled his hands away. "Van. Oh love, we - " Van ignored him for a few more precious seconds, pressing kisses against his lover's lips again until Stefen caught his chin in one hand. " _Gods_ , I love you, and I want you to sober up and talk to me about this first. _Please_."

Stef might just have well have tossed a glass of icy water in his face. "But," he wanted to protest, and he found himself shaking. He slipped back from Stefen's body, suddenly imagining himself awakening naked and hung over in a strange bed - how would he feel about that, even if it had been Stefen? Even - especially - knowing it was his own reckless fault? His discomfort might return as easily as his want had, and Stef didn't deserve that...

Stef nodded gently, his hands held palm-up in a gesture of peace. "We both know what we want, right? There's no need to rush anything tonight. There'll be a better moment for it." He smiled, unsteadily.

Van tried to smile back. "I guess you're right."

"You know it." Stef got back to his feet, and offered Van his arms, pulling him upright into his embrace. Their lips met again, sinfully slow, passion building a sighing hairsbreadth at a time; he caught a clear tone of regret in Stef's feelings as he pulled away. "You need sleep," he said. "And so do I." He put a steadying hand to the doorjamb, and looked Vanyel up and down, clearly harbouring temptations. "I won't lie to you though; it might be a short while before I actually _sleep_."

Van hissed in a breath at his brazenness and caught Stef's chin in his hand, pulling him in for one last kiss before turning aside, closing the door himself. He picked up his candle and tiptoed his way to the bed, snuffed it and slipped his clothes off, thinking inevitably of Stefen mere yards away doing the same.

And the bed smelled a little of Stef... He sank into it, feeling warm and cared for and horribly frustrated all at once. He relaxed his empathic shielding just a little, and 'listened' to their lifebond. Stef felt strangely _relieved_ , or perhaps that wasn't strange at all; his lust was a low note beneath the joy of finding he was still wanted - and Vanyel felt that lust stoked and heightened as he focused on it, a purely emotional performance of eroticism. _He always loves to put on a show._

He touched his own hard cock with one hand, letting the other drift around his body, imagining that his lover had been much less gentlemanly, or that he himself had the nerve to barge into the next room and demand that Stefen fuck him into the couch, or - or that everything were simpler than it were. He ran fingertips lightly over his aching erection, images coming to him in fragmented jumbles - Stefen in his arms last summer, or this evening, a partner who'd come to him determined and patient, treated him lovingly, playfully, obscenely, taken his heart and held it inside his own. He thought, briefly, of Tylendel - a rough kiss in the cold, a fever-dream one summertime. Leareth had never known what he liked, he realised. What he _liked_ was passion - being touched like he mattered, like his body was just there to be burned through to reach his soul.

He teased himself long and thoroughly, letting each sensation pass to Stefen for the joy of feeling its echoes, and when his love found the peak of his pleasure Vanyel drank in the feeling and followed in its aftermath, shivering in the wake of their slow burst of joy. He curled on his side, feeling utterly relaxed, too much so to really _think_ about what they'd just shared; he tried to Send his love and his promise of more to come, soon, and in return he felt Stef's patience and gratitude. He saw, belatedly, that Stef had been _terrified_ that Van might not want to be intimate with him any more; and that he had resolved _not_ to seduce him, but to simply offer whatever Van needed in order to feel happy and beloved, and to accept whatever he received in return.

He drifted into sleep thinking of a young man in the snow; a half-remembered vision, full of compassion. It nagged at him, not to remember but to forget - to let go of hate and horror and seek renewal, to reach for a love that was bright enough that he'd found it again in the darkest of places. A closed door between them, and the shadow of terrible memories, couldn't hide it from his sight in the least. _With you. Whatever happens. However far apart we might be. You're where I belong, always._


End file.
